PROVINCES OF REASON AND REVELATION. 589 
He upholds the mechanism of the material World ; 
but here its province ends : respecting the sub- 
jects on which, above all others, it concerns man- 
kind to be well informed, namely, the will of 
God in his moral government, and the future 
prospects of the human race, Reason only as- 
sures us of the absolute need in which we stand 
of a Revelation. Many of the greatest pro- 
ficients in philosophy have felt and expressed 
these distinctions. " The consideration of God's 
Providence (says Boyle) in the conduct of things 
corporeal may prove to a well-disposed Contem- 
plator, a Bridge, whereon he may pass from 
Natural to Revealed Religion. "t| 
'' Next (says Locke) to the knowledge of one 
God, Maker of all things, a clear knowledge o 
their duty was wanting to mankind." 
And He, whose name, by the consent of na- 
tions, is above all praise, the inventor and founder 
t Christian Virtuoso, 1690. P. 42. 
X " Natural Religion, as it is the first that is embraced by the 
mind, so it is the foundation upon which revealed religion ought 
to be superstructed, and is as it were, the stock upon which 
Christianity must be engrafted. For though I readily acknow- 
ledge natural religion to be insufficieyit , yet I think it very ne- 
cessary. It will be to little purpose to press an infidel with 
arguments drawn from the worthiness, that appears in the Chris- 
tian doctrine to have been revealed by God, and from the mira- 
cles its first preachers wrought to confirm it ; if the unbeliever be 
not already persuaded, upon the account of natural religion, that 
there is a God, and that he is a rewarder of them that dili- 
gently seek him.'" Boyle's Christian Virtuoso, Part II. prop. 1. 
